Drop in the Ocean
by andeemae
Summary: Sometimes the small moments in life are just as important as the big ones. A collection of little moments, Marauders Era.
1. Not Helping

Disclaimer: It's JK Rowling's characters and world, I'm just playing with it. It's all hers, not mine.

**Not Helping**

"I just don't think this is the image I want to project on my first date," Remus frowned at the mirror.

It had been an epic mistake to ask the others for help. Thirteen year old boys were notoriously poor in the field of wooing thirteen year old girls. He knew, from his stiff pomaded hair down to his overly polished toes, that they were the absolute worst people to assist him in getting ready for his first date.

Sirius, who for some reason seemed to think he was the expert in all things hair related ("Just look at this mane!"), had molded Remus' hair into something reminiscent of one the horrible plastic styles of one of his mother's frightening doll collection. Peter had been in charge of gathering up ingredients for a cologne, a simple enough task one would think, but he'd come back with a variety of horrid smelling roots.

"Well, it says they smell better mixed together," he'd told them as he held his nose and dumped the contents of his little bag onto Sirius' bed.

"Don't put that there!" Sirius barked, immediately pushing the disgusting mess onto the floor.

"And you expect me to put that on to make myself more attractive, why exactly?" Remus pinched his nose.

"It'll be fine," James had assured him. Though putting on his dragon hide gloves to pick up the ingredients did little to add credence to his statement.

James had picked out the clothes, which, Remus admitted, weren't bad. In fact, each piece was, taken individually, actually not bad in his mind. It was the combination Remus was less than thrilled about.

The shoes were nice, just a touch too shiny, especially combined with the red plaid pants, and he was certain they were the same style he'd worn when his mother had taken him bowling when he was seven. He quite liked them. The jacket was a strange material, James called it 'crushed velvet', and was a little scratchy on the inside. James had bought it on summer holiday with his parents in muggle London, and he promised him it was quite popular among the non-magical community.

"And I've taken almost three months of Muggle Studies, Moony, I think I know what I'm talking about."

He and Sirius also claimed to have seen several muggle movies over the summer, including one they absolutely refused to even mention by name, and so claimed to know exactly what a muggle-born witch like Tracy Trevone would like.

Sirius clapped him on the back, "She'll be on you like bowtruckles on tree lice, mate."

Unless tree lice had started repelling bowtruckles, Remus felt the comparison was ill fitting.

Behind them there was a small explosion, James and Peter began coughing and gagging, then the curtain around Remus' bed burst into flames.

"Don't worry! We have it under control!" James shouted as he and Peter pulled the drape down and began stomping on it. A foul odor filled the room.

Remus pinched the bridge of his nose.

This was an epic mistake.

He was keeping the shoes though.


	2. Career Planning

Disclaimer: It's JK Rowling's characters and world, I'm just playing with it. It's all hers, not mine.

**Career Planning**

"But Marlene, we don't have to choose classes until the end of term!"

Marlene shook her head and shuffled the stacks of books around. Lily felt it was going to be a long night.

"It's very important, Lily, these choices will help determine our future!" She looked frantic, her blonde hair, normally so perfectly coifed, was in shambled around her head.

They were in the library, digging, almost literally, through stacks of books over all their prospective careers. The table was littered with literature over every conceivable occupation they could ever dream of, and a few Lily most definitely hadn't.

"You grew up in the wizarding world, Mar, how can you be so hopeless about all this?"

Marlene was from one of the old families. One of her ancestors, Boris or Barium or Bartholomew, had started an antique trading business back during the Dark Ages that prospered to the modern day. Respected and revered, they had money enough that if she so chose, Marlene would never have to work a day in her life. She didn't care though; she wanted to be her own person, something Lily respected. She would've respected it even _more_ if she'd waited to do her research closer to when they had Career Advice with Professor McGonagall.

Lily, herself, was excited about the prospect of a career in the magical world. The possibilities were as wide and varied as Lily could have ever imagined. When she had been little she'd thought she would maybe be a florist, like her mother, or a transcriptionist for a medical office, like her favorite great aunt, but now she had far more interesting prospects.

"I never put much thought into it," Marlene fretted. "But Ether was saying something about breaking away from tradition, maybe becoming a brewer for a potioneer, and Mary is already looking into working in the culinary arts, and Addy, Merlin's beard, she's been planning on being a healer since she was just a tiny thing-"

She's off, babbling like a brook, flipping through the worn pages in front of her and running her hands through her increasingly wild looking hair.

A figure appeared from the shelves, dark and billowing.

"'Lo, Sev."

Marlene froze mid rant and eyed Severus' warily. Her pale eyes flickered from his greasy hair to his faded robes then finally to his battered trainers, just barely peaking out from the hem of his robes. He'd gotten taller and his mother had mercifully bought him a new pair from the secondhand store.

"Lily," he gave her a weak smile. He wasn't fond of Marlene, nor any of Lily's friends really, and had probably been hoping to catch her alone.

He picked up a book and turned through the pages, examining it with a bored expression.

"Planning a life of cultivating Ashwinders, McKinnon?"

Marlene snatched the book from him, muttering, "I might be."

His mouth turned up in a cold kind of smile, "Family not want you lowering the company standards?"

It was a low blow. Marlene was sensitive about her grades, which weren't bad…they just were as fantastic as she felt they should be. They were average, which to Lily was fine. She'd been a mediocre student when she went to muggle schools, was still in a few of her magical studies. She saw nothing wrong with average.

"Severus," she gave him a sharp look. He could be so thoughtless of other people's feelings sometimes.

He frowned, apparently unaware he'd been rude. "My apologies, McKinnon."

Marlene gave him a cold look as a reply. The settle into a silent stare off.

Lily grasped for a way to break the ice between them. She finally settled on, "Have you thought what you'll do after graduation, Sev?"

He pulls his eyes from Marlene's, "Something in potions, I suppose."

They were both brilliant at potions, but Lily wasn't sure she wanted to exist solely in that field. Trapped in a dungeon or backroom brewing what could sometimes be smelly and caustic potions seemed a dim future to her.

"I've always like herbology," she told him with a smile. "And my mother is a florist so it's something she understands, sort of." She looked to Marlene, "I've read about some of the most famous ones and they travel all over the world finding new branches, and others that've discovered new magical properties for existing ones."

It was familiar and normal, but completely not.

Marlene nodded and reached out for another book, "That's so clever of you, Lily. Circes' pigs, why can't I be half as clever!"

Her frantic search restarted. Lily sighed and gave Severus a tight smile.

It was going to be a very long night.


	3. Seating Arrangement

Disclaimer: It's JK Rowling's characters and world, I'm just playing with it. It's all hers, not mine.

**Seating Arrangement **

James flicks one of the newt eyes at Sirius. It soars with precision, straight to the back of his head, sticking in his hair, and he doesn't even feel a thing.

_I wonder how many more I can get to stick before he notices?_

Quite a lot, he imagines.

Sirius is in a heavy discussion with Delilah Van, the Hufflepuff girl that has take up the seat in front of them for their sixth year of Potions. She's fair-headed and bubbly, always smiling. She's also sharp as a hippogriff beak and therefore a good resource to have in a class which requires the sort of tediousness James feels dominates Potions.

Not that either one of them is particularly bad at Potions. They excel at everything they do; they would tell anyone that would listen just that. Potions is simply not their_best_ subject. Everyone is bound to have one.

He's on his seventh newt eye when the door to Slughorn's dungeon classroom opens and Snape skulks in, his greasy hair in his beady little eyes. James frowns to himself, it would've been too much to hope the little blight would move to another country and save James from having to see his smug face for another year.

A few minutes pass and the door opens again, this time a group of Ravenclaws shuffle in. At the back of the group, listening to Ether Blishwick exhort the many wonderful uses of hippogriff dung, are the lone pair of Griffindor.

Addy, dark hair in a long plait down her back, crosses the room, past James and Sirius, to the seat diagonally and to the left of the boys. Where she'd sat for the previous five years.

She notices Sirius' newt eye covered hair, nods her approval to James, then sits. Her former table mate, Mary MacDonald, is no longer taking potions, so she throws her books into the empty seat. James flicks a newt eye at her, but she bats it away with a grin.

Lily is still standing with Ether, listening, the girl has moved on to a new wizarding band, but Lily isn't paying her much mind. She's eyeing the room with discomfort. Her gaze freezes and James follows the line of her vision.

Snape.

James notices Snape has left Lily's seat empty. The side of the table she had shared with him for the past five years of Potions is ready for her. It sits, cleaned and expectant of her arrival. Snape's eyes are wide, there's a sense of hopefulness in them as he holds her gaze.

Quickly, James scans the room. There are plenty of empty tables, the sixth year class is much smaller, more selective. Everyone can have their own table should they so want, and there are clearly a few who do. They, like Addy, have sat books in the empty seat and are spreading supplies out broadly, making it abundantly obvious they are more than happy to have the extra space.

Ether takes her leave of Lily, takes the seat next to the bubbly Delilah.

Lily still stands by the door, hesitantly scanning the room. James can see her examining the empty tables. Then her search ends at the back of the room and she sets her face in determination.

James assumes she's taking the vacancy over and up from he and Sirius when she breezes past him, a decision he's both happy and annoyed with. Happy he'd have a better view of her, and annoyed because Potions is enough of a bother without her so near him and being a distraction.

She doesn't turn up the row, though, but down.

"Can I sit with you, Adelaide?"

Addy has stretched her short legs out and propped them up on her books in Mary's old seat. She's silent for a moment, they're hardly friends, just seemed to tolerate one another most of the time.

James catches Lily glancing up to where Snape is sitting and Addy apparently does too. She frowns slightly, sighs, and kicks her books from the seat.

"Take it."

James notices, though, that she hadn't spread her supplies out. He wonders if she might've expected Lily to ask to share her table.

Lily smiles brightly as she places her books down and begins unloading her supplies.

It's a shock, her moving seats. James hadn't realized just how deep the rift between she and Snape was until now. She'd gone out of her way to find another seat.

No, not just another seat. Sitting at an empty table would've been one thing, Lily has chosen another occupied table, a table with another Griffindor. One near enough to James, and, okay, near Sirius too, that she might even have to ask to borrow supplies occasionally.

She's settled herself firmly on the side of a line that Snape won't cross.

Snape scowls at her back as she straightens her new table, turning roughly in his seat when she turns and looks up, catching him watching her. In a bit of a tantrum he begins spreading his things across his own table, now with an entire side for him to use for himself.

James' stomach sinks a bit.

He'd helped cause the rift, the destruction of the two's childhood friendship, and he feels more than little guilty at stealing what had been such an important relationship to Lily from her. Even if he didn't understand it in the least. He hadn't, though, forced Snape to say that awful thing, hadn't made him be friends with those pureblood fanatics, and hadn't made him choose them and their twisted views of muggleborns over Lily. Snape had made those decision all on his own, and now he's living with the consequences.

Sirius lets out a low whistle.

"That was a bit intense."

James nods.

Sirius sits back in his seat, propping it up on the back two legs. "Meant to make a statement, didn't she?"

"Yeah," James nods. "She did."

Sirius makes a gagging noise and James looks back at him. He pulls his hand from the back of his head, where he'd apparently been putting it during his relaxing, and examines it.

"Newt eyes?"

James gives him a look of complete innocence.

"How did you manage that?"


	4. Talk of Litters

Disclaimer: It's JK Rowling's characters and world, I'm just playing with it. It's all hers, not mine.

**Talk of Litters**

Sirius lets out a long sigh.

"Well, poor little bastard," he finally says after another minute of thought. "Looks just like James."

Remus closes his eyes and sighs. "If you value your ability to possibly procreate in the future you'll refrain from calling Lily's child anything but an 'adorable little angel' in her presence."

"Or a handsome little devil," Peter adds with a thoughtful nod.

They're standing along the wall, looking in at the rows of newborns lined up behind the glass, all swaddled in plain looking little blankets the hospital provided and hideous looking little knitted hats generously donated by little old ladies with too much time on their hands.

Lily had wanted to have the baby in the muggle hospital, despite the fact that everyone from Dumbledore down to Remus' own father had told her that a home birth would be much more secure, especially in the current states of the world.

"Dumbledore can have any house you like much safer than a hospital," Remus' father, Lyall, had told her.

Remus' mother, Hope, who'd been setting the table with the family's shabby dinner plates had given Lily a reassuring look. She'd taken up the position of mother after learning of both Lily's own parents' untimely deaths. "Whatever you do, love, everyone will be looking out for you."

That had been enough encouragement for Lily, having another person, a muggle like her own mother, tell her to follow her heart. She'd swiftly told James they were having their baby in the hospital.

"And that's final."

Remus had been a little wary of it, especially when he, Sirius, and Peter had been given the task of magically securing all the doors, exits and entrances, windows and laundry chute in the hospital.

"You lot were part of a clandestine group that wandered Hogwarts and Hogsmeade as well as the Forbidden Forest. Stealth and evasiveness are in your blood," James had told them. "I think you can handle locking a few doors and windows in a little muggle hospital."

Stealth and evasiveness were one thing, keeping Sirius from flirting with the aides and nurses as they masqueraded as maintenance was quite another.

"Will you keep you libido in check for five minutes so we can finish these protective enchantments?" Remus had grumbled. "This is the lives of your best friend, his wife, and your future god son we are talking about."

Sirius had rolled his eyes at that before quickly and quietly finishing off the spell right under Remus' nose. "Nag."

It had taken them, as well as a few of the other Order members, nearly a week to find all the cracks and crevices, points of entry, and stop them up. Remus envied the group that ended up at the Longbottoms' stately old manor. He doubted they were asked to mop up vomit in the hallway, as he'd been forced to do at least seven times during the course of the week.

Now though, looking through the glass at the perfect, healthy, and soundly snoring baby, Remus supposes it was all worth it.

"I might like one someday," Peter says as he smiles at a particularly chubby baby being rolled out of the nursery.

Sirius looks horrified, makes a gagging noise. "What for?"

Peter frowns in thought. "That's what people do, Sirius. They grow up, get married, have kids…"

That explanation doesn't seem to impress Sirius. "Well, I'm breaking from tradition. No marriage, no stinky brats, no growing up for me."

Remus rolls his eyes. "While I have no doubt you'll evade marriage, and I'm positive growing up is _well _beyond your grasp, I'm afraid one of these days you'll get a basket on your doorstop with at least one or two diaper wearing humans and a note pinned to their blankets telling you about the one beautiful, if abruptly short night, you and their mother spent together."

Just as Sirius opens his mouth, no doubt to say something vulgar, Peter begins giggling.

"Or a box of puppies," he manages to sputter out.

More at the look of absolute horror on Sirius' face than Peter's implications of how their friend spends his time in animagus form, Remus dissolves into laughter.

"There was that rather fetching stray that hung around the Hogs Head," Remus adds as he wipes at his eyes.

Peter's giggles intensify. "Oh, the mutt, the one that looked a bit like a corgi?"

Sirius makes a snarling noise and makes a grab for Peter's collar, but he ducks, sending Sirius into the wall, scrapping his knuckles and causing him to swear loudly.

A nurse with sharp features and hawkish eyes gives him a narrow look and presses her fingers to her lips, shushing him.

That, coupled with the particularly disgusted expression growing on Sirius' face, causes Remus to double over, wheezing with laughter.

It takes several minutes, and the frightening looking nurse threatening to toss them from the ward, for Peter and Remus to get their laughter under control. Even then a few bubbles of mad giggles still manage to escape them every few seconds.

"I hate both of you," Sirius mutters, crossing his arms and flopping against the wall to watch the particularly svelte nurse shuffle the babies in the window. "Half those rumors the two of _you _started."

Remus starts to point out that the other half Sirius and James had started, but holds his tongue. He supposes the idiot deserves at least one friend left.

Even if that friend had been the original source of his epic tales of sexual prowess.

When the last of the giggles burn off, Sirius' eyes cut over to Remus.

"What about you, Moony?"

Remus frowns. What about him?

Sirius arches one eyebrow. "Kids? You planning on a litter your own someday?"

For a second Remus stares past his friend, focuses his eyes on a father holding a particularly small girl up and pointing out her new brother or sister to her. Then he lets his eyes travel, settle on the rows of babies.

"Not really in my stars is it?"

He'll never get married, and he isn't planning on dropping off children like parting gifts to any number of unfortunate girls who might be willing and able to be with him without the promise of any long term commitment. Beyond that, he's an expert on his condition. There is no literature on whether lycanthropy can be passed from parent to child, it isn't something anyone is willing to put to test, or admit to at least. The chances are slim, but even a slim chance is a chance, and he won't curse a child the way he's been. He can't be that cruel. Even if they were normal, uninfected, he would never be able to provide for them, he can barely provide for himself.

Much as he'd love that life, a wife and children, a home and normalcy, his future had been sealed when he'd been bitten.

"But Addy said that fellow in the Werewolf Ward, Damocles or what not, was making that potion," Peter says, looking between Sirius and Remus. "She said he might have a cure…"

Remus sighs. Peter is always looking for escapes to the unpleasant.

"He might have something for the symptoms. There is no cure," Remus says finally.

Sirius' eyes follow Remus' line of sight, to the nursery, and he smiles. "But if they could get the symptoms under control then-"

"Then nothing," Remus snaps. "I'll still be-be what I _am_. I'll always be a vicious monster."

A mindless killing machine that has no business being around an innocent child, putting them through the same misery as him.

Sirius rolls his eyes so hard Remus is certain he'll need a headache curing potion before too long.

"Yes, Remus, you are truly a terror to behold," he takes a step around Remus, nudges Peter with his shoulder. "Watch out, Peter, he might try to give us a paper cut with some breastfeeding literature."

That gets Peter to snickering again.

Just as Remus is about to put a silencing spell over the both of them, or shoot one of the many wads of used chewing gum under the benches in the corner up their noses, a much more appealing option, something taps at them from the other side of the glass pane.

Grinning at them, almost manically, is James, hoisting the baby up and making it wave its chubby little fist at them.

"James!" Sirius laughs. "What are you doing in there? I thought they said it was staff only, that we had to be in the room to hold the baby?"

With a shrug, James shifts the baby.

"I used my charming personality and wit to convince them to let me in," he tells them, grinning.

"More like confounded one of them," Remus mutters to himself. He wouldn't be surprised if one of the poor nursery nurses turns up in a linen closet trying to bottle feed a mop head.

James shakes his head and feigns being wounded. "Remus, how can you think so little of me?" He waits a beat. "Lily did it."

Sirius lets out a loud, harsh bark of laughter. "That's our girl!"

That's not entirely surprising, Lily is astoundingly proficient at skirting the rules when she so feels. He also has every confidence that she would've secured the hospital much more efficiently than he, Sirius, Peter, and James ever could, even while pregnant.

Mostly Remus is just relieved to hear she's reverted to the Confudus Charm. The pregnancy had made her reliance on Densaugeo more alarming than anyone was willing to admit. If Remus' memory serves him correctly, at least Lily's confounding her will likely only result in the poor girl ending up down the street, at the little bakery, eating her weight in pastries, not booking an emergency appointment with a muggle tooth filer.

"So," Sirius moves on, his mind untroubled by whatever girl is now probably knees deep in cream filling, "what name have we decided on for the little imp? Elvendork?"

James actually looks disappointed. "No."

Sirius' eyes widen. "Not even for a middle name?"

"Also, sadly, no." James gives the baby an apologetic glance, as though its mother hadn't just saved it from a lifetime of being nickname 'Dork' Potter. If only Doras Meadowes parents had possessed such forethought.

James' expression brightens, though, as he shifts the baby in his arms, making him a little more visible through the glass. "We decided on 'Harry'."

_Maybe he shouldn't thank Lily just yet._

While Harry is definitely better than 'Elvendork', a name Remus had been certain James and Sirius had been making up and had no real attachment to other than to annoy Lily, 'Harry Potter' is bound to have some very obvious drawbacks, as far as names are concerned.

Remus decides not to point that out at the moment, though, when he sees the contented smile on James' face. He doesn't think he'll be enlightening his friend on how cruel schoolchildren can be, but giving him a refresher course can wait until he's had a little more time with the child he's dubbed with such an easily distorted name.

"Harry Sirius Potter," Sirius says, beaming at the now slumbering little Harry through the glass. "I like it."

"Haha, Sirius," James rolls his eyes. "Harry _James_ Potter."

Sirius shakes his head. "You couldn't even let the little ankle biter have an interesting middle name? Harry _James _Potter? Sounds like some muggle accountant."

James laughs, eyes twinkling back at his friends through the barrier between them. "I'll name the next one 'Paddy' in your honor, alright Padfoot?"

"Ah, 'Paddy Potter'," Sirius gives the name a theatrical amount of consideration. "I like it. I'll have papers drawn up this afternoon. Hold you to it."

"Lily might have something to say about that," Remus mutters out the side of his mouth to Peter who simply shrugs at his friends' apparent name pact.

They don't seem to care, just carry on, telling little Harry about all his future siblings, Paddy and Petra, and of course sweet little Lupina, numbering his fictitious siblings into the dozens before Remus casually mentions Sirius' undoubtedly numberless litters of puppies already in existence.

James looks delighted at the thought, and the look of utter disgust twisted up on Sirius' features.

"Hear that, Harry? You have little puppy cousins!" James gives Sirius a sharp look. "I suppose I should've looked into neutering you when we caught you with that twitchy looking witch when you went on holiday with us in the Pyrenees…"

"We were in France, James," Sirius tells him loftily. "Things happen in France and no one should be punished for that."

What things exactly 'happened' in France, Remus neither knows nor does he think he really wants to know. Knowing his friends, it's likely to be something Remus will need a memory charm to forget.

Or it'll be a complete fabrication.

And he'll still need a memory charm to sleep at night.

After ten minutes the lone nurse watching the babies finally has the chance to realize there's an unknown in her nursery and gets the hawk-eyed old nurse that had earlier threatened Sirius to kick James out, both threatening to ban him for the rest of Lily's stay if he entered again.

"Not if my wife has anything to say about that," James mumbles cryptically at them when they're out of earshot.

Remus presses his fingers to his temples.

One thing is for certain, in the unlikely event he ever has a child, he's not letting his friends anywhere near the kid. They're clearly bad influences.

And Lily will be in charge of securing the building. She's dangerous.


End file.
